As I indicated several days ago, I'll be on vacation from this column this week (primarily due to the speaking tour I'm doing, the schedule for which is here: all events are open to the public). We have arranged for two outstanding guest columnists who will post throughout the week: Murtaza Hussain, a Toronto-based writer and foreign policy analyst who has previously filled in for me at Salon, and Kade Crockford, the director of the Technology for Liberty project at the ACLU of Massachusetts where she edits and writes the Privacy Matters blog.

Both of them, as you will see, are quite informative and provocative commentators. Until they begin on Monday, feel free to use the comment section to this post for all reasonable purposes.